I'm sorry. I just can't help myself. Every time I see a picture of Mitch McConnell, with his chinless, droopy jowls and his creepy skin, I think: "Put a lace boudoir cap on him, and he looks just like everybody's Aunt Minnie, a grim dowager sitting over in the corner in a long black dress with white lace collar, knitting -- all the while sharpening her acid tongue to denounce those she disapproves of. It's her ilk that says "Let them eat cake" -- or, more likely, "take your castor oil."
OK. So much for my sarcasm and dislike of the Senate Minority Leader.
There's also plenty of room to oppose him on rational, policy grounds. He has a talent for bluntly saying what his cohorts try to spin with euphemisms. Remember his saying that the Republicans' agenda consisted solely of making sure that Obama was a one-term president?
Well now he's done it again. On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked him how the Republicans planned to provide health care coverage for 30 million uninsured Americans.
McConnell: "That's not the issue . . . . The question is how to go step by step to improve the American health care system. It is already the finest health care system in the world."
Wallace: "You don't think 30 million uninsured is an issue?"McConnell: "We're not going to turn the American health care system into a western European system. That's exactly what is at the heart of Obamacare. . . .Wallace: If you repeal Obamacare how will you protect those people with pre-existing conditions?
Where to begin? First, the finest health care in the world is available to those who can afford the high price tag of "boutique medicine" offices or at tertiary treatment centers for serious problems. But it is far, far from the best system in the world for the vast majority of the poor and many middle class families. Our general health indexes, like rates of infant mortality, premature births, life expectancy, obesity, diabetes, put us just ahead of third world countries, behind some Eastern European countries, and way behind Western European countries that have some form of national health services.McConnell: "Over half the states have high-risk pools that deal with that issue."
But to Aunt Minnie McConnell, 30 million uninsured Americans is not an issue to be concerned with.
Let them eat cake. Let the states take care of them. After all, he said, over half of states already provide these high risk pools where they can purchase insurance specially set up for people with pre-existing conditions. What he didn't say is that the rates are so high, most of the uninsured can't afford them and just go without -- until they wind up in emergency rooms, and everybody else pays for their care, driving up medical costs.
But McConnell and his ilk can't be bothered with actual people and their needs. First we have to take care of the businesses and the wealthy people who own these businesses.
Ralph
McConnell has said two more things, however:
ReplyDelete1. That if Republicans gain control of the Senate and he becomes Majority Leader, he seek to repeal Obamacare through the budget reconciliation process, which will take only 51 votes.
2. But he also says the odds are against repeal. "It's a lot harder to undo something than to stop if from happening."
OK. I'll take that one. He's probably right on #1, especially since SCOTUS defined the mandate penalty as a tax. Or at least parts of it could probably be done with the 51.
Of course, if Obama is re-elected, he can simply veto it. But if Romney wins, it could happen.